


California Girls

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 16:32:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2857562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Patriots schemes revealed to the world, Monroe's good name has been redeemed. He has been hailed as the one man who stood against the Patriots and established himself as one of the leading lights of the new states alliance. As he makes plans to head West to California to seal an alliance with them, Charlie thinks that someone needs to keep an eye on him.</p><p>Besides, she never wanted to be a farmgirl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quentanilien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quentanilien/gifts).



Waco, Texas - 17 September, 2030

 

It had been three hours in the midday sun, signing up the hopeful and hopeless to fight and die for the newly formed Allied States. Sitting under the recruitment poster - Are you a TRUE Patriot? Join the Allied States military - Sergeant Lavery was starting to feel like a boiled lobster. He mopped the back of his neck with a damp handkerchief and finished scribbling down the enlistment details of a dead-eyed farmer with no dependents (‘Not anymore.’).

He didn’t bother to look up as the next in line made their way to the desk, just flipped a page in the ledger and put the pencil to the top of the column.

‘Experience?’

He got a forearm thrust under his nose in answer. A lopsided brand welted the tanned skin, the edges of it frayed as if she’d not held still. Lavery heaved a put-upon sigh and looked up. The woman didn’t look old enough to be a veteran, all freckles and a fresh, open face.

‘Monroe’s in Austin,’ he said. ‘Most of the Militia are going there to sign up.’

She shrugged and ran a hand through her hair, pushing the dust-dull mane back from her face. ‘It was a long enough walk to get here.’ She pulled her road-grubby sleeve down over her brand. ‘I didn’t see Monroe when I got this, don’t see any reason to walk further to see him this time.’

Lavery scratched his lower lip with the end of his pencil. There was no rule against it, he supposed, and even a soldier that wanted to take advantage of the Militia legacy might not have any fond feelings for Monroe. It certainly wasn’t something Lavery would fault her for. They might be putting Monroe’s face on recruitment posters now, but this time last year he was the most reviled man on the continent.

‘Fair enough,’ he said, dropping the pencil back to the paper. He squiggled a rough icon of the brand at the side of the column. ‘Rank in the militia?’

She quirked a smile. ‘Just a grunt.’

He crossed the column and went on the next.

‘Name?’

‘Nora Porter.’

She hadn’t hesitated or balked, but Lavery had been doing this a long time. He could tell a fake name when he heard it. That was up to her though.

‘Family?’

‘Why?’

‘They get a stipend if you get killed in the line of duty,’ he said. ‘Might want to know where you’re buried, too.’

‘And break with family tradition?’ she asked, something bitter in her voice. ‘No. There’s no one that needs to know if I get myself killed.’

It wasn’t Lavery’s job to argue. He wrote down what she’d told him and fished the stamped silver coin from the crate under the table. It was pre-Blackout currency - so it wouldn’t buy you a fish in the market - but the Rangers star was stamped into it. He held it up between his fingers so she could see it.

‘All the rangers carry one of these,’ he said. ‘Blanchard has one. Fry had one. You carry this, you’re a Ranger, not a member of the militia. Understand?’

She raised an eyebrow and pointed her chin at the poster. ‘I thought we were the Allied States military.’

‘Monroe’s signing them up in Austin.’ He flipped the coin and she snatched it out of the air, not looking away from him. ‘Waco’s looking for Rangers.’

She glanced at the coin and tucked it into the pocket of her jeans. ‘Long as you don’t need farmers.’

 

* * *

 

Charlie clenched her jaw and put up with the hard-faced seamstress cinching a knotted cord around her boobs and hips, measuring the length of her legs and width of her shoulders. Once she was finished she disappeared into the stores. Charlie leaned against the counter and absently scratched her arm, nails bumping over the scar.

It  wasn’t about Monroe.

It had been the cow that made Charlie’s mind up. Or rather the six foot of corn-fed muscle that delivered the cow, stayed for dinner, and made a move on Charlie while she was showing him around the farm and trying to pretend there was anything interesting about turnips.

‘Nice boy isn’t he?’ Rachel had said. ‘I was thinking we could do with another hand around here. And he’s not hard on the eyes.’

Matchmaking.

It was like Maggie had come back from the dead: all hints and ‘subtle’ comments about it putting her Dad’s mind at rest. Sitting at the kitchen table Charlie had seen it play out in her mind’s eye. A couple of bored fucks in the field, a big belly and everyone assuming she wanted it. She’d spend the rest of her life in Willoughby, making turnips and babies. In between she’d play deputy to Miles, but eventually that’d fall by the wayside. She’d be just another farmer’s wife, with a few stories that nobody believed.

That was what Rachel wanted, to be nobody special.

Charlie didn’t know what she wanted anymore. All her old daydreams had gotten shopworn or died over the last couple of years. She knew what she didn’t want though, a future so claustrophobic it made her want to scream.

She’d already had the poster.

The Rangers had dropped them off with Miles the month before, with a personal invitation from Monroe. He’d taken them grimly, stared at them for an hour and then burned them. Charlie had snaked one, because…

Because she was just waiting for the cow, she supposed.

It had been stuffed under her mattress since then, folded and unfolded and folded again until it was ripping along the creases. She’d balled it up in a temper - everything he’d done and she still had to look at Monroe’s ugly face on posters? - and smoothed it out again.

Now she stuffed into the pocket of the pack she’d never really unpacked.

She’d thought about telling them the truth, but that wouldn’t work. There would be yelling and tears, accusations and appeals to Danny’s memory. Either she’d walk out on bad terms, or she’d stay and hate them. That was assuming that Miles didn’t just follow her to Monroe, giving up everything he said he wanted to take care of her. Again.

So she’d lied.

Neither of them had suspected it. Dad would have, and Maggie would have known, but they had known her better. The Charlie who snuck off with a militia boy to lose her virginity, the Charlie who ran off with a tinker and had to be dragged home, the Charlie that wanted stuff for herself.

Miles and Rachel had never met that Charlie. They believed her when she said she was going to travel. They hadn't liked it, but all the monsters were dead or in Austin so what was there to worry about?

The seamstress came back with the grey and dull crimson uniform, shoving it across the counter at Charlie.

‘You rip it or burn it, you mend it or pay for it,’ the woman said. She licked the end of her pencil and jotted something down in her book. Then she produced a pair of boots from under the counter and tossed them at Charlie. ‘You represent the Free States now, girl. Keep them polished. You can change behind there.’

Charlie stripped down to her skin behind a tacked up sheet and tugged the uniform on. It fitted, more or less. She scratched her neck where the collar was rubbing and paused, tracing the button that fastened it with her finger.

A instead of M. A smile cocked the corner of Charlie’s mouth. That had to be sticking in Monroe’s craw. She frowned and shook her head, brushing the throat away.

Not that any of this was about Monroe.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

11th October: San Angelo, Texas

 

The horse didn't want to move. It was hot and tired, the running water was cold on its sore legs. Most of the other horses in their string had decided the same thing. One had lain down and was rolling in the water, drenching the Rangers trying to drag it back to its feet.

Charlie gave up shoving at her horse's ass and draped herself over its withers, resting her cheek on her arm. The horse smelled dank and musty, of mud and sweat.

'Maybe we should just camp here?' she suggested.

Sergeant Cossick gave her a black scowl and took his Stetson off, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. It didn't help. His face was covered chin to eyebrows with road-dust turned to mud from sweat.

'Maybe it ain't up to you where we camp, Porter,' he said. 'I don't know how they did it in the militia, but in the Rangers we camp where we're told.'

She rolled her eyes. 'I was joking, Sergeant.'

His expression soured further. ‘The militia might have been a joke, Porter. The Rangers ain’t. Get the horse moving.’

He turned and splashed across the stream, sliding gracelessly on the mossy rocks. Charlie snorted after him and pushed herself up, giving the horse’s rump a friendly slap. It snorted and craned its neck round, rolling a big, dark eye at her.

‘Don’t want to move, huh?’ Charlie asked, wading forward to catch the trailing reins and wrap them around her hands. It was getting dark now and the water was cold enough to make her bones ache. She scratched the bristly underside of the horse’s chin until it snorted and lipped hopefully at her sleeves. A few slices of dried apple held juuuuuussst out of reach was enough to get it to slosh two and three steps forwards. Once it was in motion, it decided it was easier to go along with her tugs rather than stop again.

Once it hit the slippery bank it flattened its ears unhappily and surged up out of the river, water sluicing off its sides and hooves digging divots into the dirt. It caught the sergeant by surprise and he stumbled backwards on his heels, nearly falling on his ass. Even under the mask of dirt, Charlie could see him turning ruddy with temper.

'Goddamnit, Porter,' he snapped. 'How do you manage to do as you're told and fuck it up? Get the horse rubbed down and secured, then go help the others. We need to get these supplies through by morning.'

'Did they find another Patriot bolt hole?' Charlie asked.

Last time it had been a bloodbath. Reports had it that there was a cell of Patriots holed up in Kerrville. Major Chance had gone in with his Company to check it out, and catch up with the Sheriff who'd been an old flame. Turned out the whole town had ink in their lids, men, women and kids. Little kids.

First atrocity of the new regime.

Not that Charlie had any first hand knowledge of it, just what she'd gleaned from reports and scuttlebutt. Her company spent most of their time running supplies up and down the country. It wasn't safe. With the Republic gone the Plains tribes had turned West to do their robbing, and there were plenty of refugees and starving farmers to try their luck too. It wasn't war though.

'Nope, it's just a supply drop for a delegation that's heading out. We've not had any reports of Patriot activity in weeks.' Cossick said. He wiped his face again. It was more rearranging mud than cleaning it off at this point. 'Heard they had strongholds in the Wastelands, some place in the Plains where they had holed up, but we've cleaned 'em out of Texas. Disappointed, Porter?'

'No, Sir.'

The rest of the squad might be. They complained about being stuck as the 'tail' of the army. Charlie didn't. She didn't want to be a farmer, and she was a good soldier, but any day she didn't have to kill a kid that had armed like a bomb? That was a good day.

Cossick's smile was grim and short lived, mud cracking as he flashed white teeth. 'See, Porter? That's why I believe you're a veteran despite that sweet face. You're not stupid. Now get that not-dumb ass back to work.'

It was another two hours before they got the horses out of the river, tack checked and botch repairs done on the spot. Cossick spared another ten minutes to rip the Rangers who'd let their horse roll a new one.

Charlie had tuned out the stream of curse words, and was half-dozing as she waited for the change in rhythm that meant he was done. The first flicker of colour against the scrubby trees she saw, but didn't register. Monroe would have had her hide for that. It was the second that made her frown and straighten from her loose-hipped slouch.

'Sergeant,' she said. When Cossick ignored her she glanced over her shoulder and put bite in her voice. 'Sarge.'

He turned on his heel, the veins in his temples bulging with throttled back irritation. 'What.'

She pointed. 'There’s somebody up there.’'

Cossick stalked up to stand next to her, following the line of her finger up the cliff. When he saw the moving shadows, moving with discipline from one tree to the next, he grimaced.

'Teach me to tempt fucking fate, Porter,' he said flatly. 'Those aren't starving farmers, not moving like that. Could be Plains?'

Charlie shook her head. 'No. Plains raiders aren’t disciplined like that, they are skirmishers, guerilla fighters. If it was Plains we’d see a more scattered dispersal and they’d be moving faster.’

'You sure?'

'Border brat,' Charlie said, relieved that wasn't something she'd lied about. 'We knew how they fought, we fought them.’

She’d fought with them too, shoulder to shoulder with Duncan’s orphaned merc tribe. That experience she’d rather not claim if she didn’t need to though. Secrets were hard to keep sometimes.

Cossick took a deep breath, straining the buttons of his coat across his barrel chest. 'Well, fuck,' he said. 'Guess we got some solid news of the Patriots after all.'

He turned and strode away, snapping orders in a low, carrying voice. Charlie kept an eye on the trees as she casually unhooked her bow from the saddle and cranked it, slotting a quarrel into place. There was a letter in her pack, telling Miles and Rachel where she was and why. It occurs to her that it wasn't going to do much good there. She couldn't see the Patriots delivering it.

‘Don’t think they’re coming this way, Sarge,’ she said over her shoulder, keeping her eyes on the hillside. ‘They’re heading east.’

From Cossick’s reaction, that wasn’t the good news you might have thought it was. He left two Rangers to guard the wagons and pack horses, harrying the rest of them up onto their horses and moving as if the Patriots were on their tail and not a mile away.

‘You. Porter,’ he said, grunting up into his own saddle. The stetson was back on his head, star decorating the band polished up so it glinted. ‘We got companies rode into San An last night. Gossip has it one of the big wigs is along, maybe Blanchard himself. Get to them and warn them there’s an attack coming. And, Porter, I don’t care who you have to ride over or through to get that message to them. Understood?’

She nodded and put her heels to her horse, snapping the reins against its shoulder. It snorted and took off, surprise pumping adrenaline into its muscles. That wouldn’t last long. Charlie hunched over low, face almost pressed to the wet, straining neck, and hoped it would be long enough.

Branches swiped at her shoulder, tugging at her as they caught in her sleeve and her hair, and the wind pricked tears to her eyes. She felt the horse’s sides labour as it struggled up the hill, brittle earth crumbling beneath its hooves.

A man appeared at the top of the hill, featureless in the dark. The Patriots had long since abandoned their uniforms, now that everyone knew their true colours. This was just a middle-aged man with cropped salt and pepper hair and a hard face. He might have just been a farmer, or a drifter who’d heard the noise.

Charlie hesitated long enough for the man to get the first shot off. She wrenched the horse’s head to the side, making it snort and stumble. The only thing that kept it on its feet was her muscling its head up with the reins, muscles aching from her wrists to her shoulders.

The bullet missed.

Charlie didn’t. Her arrow punched into his eye and flipped him backwards with the impact. From the low ‘shit’ someone hissed out, he wasn’t alone. Charlie slung the bow around onto her back and reached down, grabbing her knife out of her boot. She threw as they came up over the rise, aiming blinding at the general area the curse had come from. A lean boy with dark skin and dead eyes, rifle halfway to his shoulder, hesitated as he ran the instinctive ‘do I need to duck’ calculations.. He didn’t, the knife missed by a yard, bouncing off a rock with a clatter, but the hesitation was long enough. Charlie rode him down, kicking him in the head as 1000 pounds of horse plowed him off his feet.

Some things broke, she heard them, but she didn’t look back to see if it was anything he couldn’t survive without. There were two other men taking up the tail end of the patrol, but neither of them had weapons in hand and she was gone before they could do more than yell in surprise.

She felt the heat before she felt anything else, dripping down into her armpit. Reaching under her jacket she poked at her shoulder with careful fingers, clenching her teeth as stunned nerves remembered what job they were supposed to do. Pain poked hot fingers into her armpit and up into her neck, making her sweat. When she took her hand out of her jacket her fingers were wet and dark. The bullet hadn’t missed.

Her arm was throbbing now and felt heavy, but - she flexed them to check - her fingers were still working so the injury wasn’t that bad.

Reaching down she slapped her horse’s neck with her bloody hand. ‘Come on,’ she murmured encouragingly. ‘Just a bit more and we’ll get you sorted with warm mash and a bed for the night. Sounds good, eh?’

When that didn’t work she jabbed heels into its ribs again, driving it forwards with a shuddering snort. Sweat was lashing off it, foam splattering Charlie’s hands, and she could feel the heat of it against her knees. But she couldn’t afford to let up. When she risked a glance back, there were five horses chasing her.

A gun spat in the dark, noise echoing off the emptiness, and Charlie could swear she heard it hiss by her ear. She shifting forwards, trying to spare the horse her weight as much as she could. Two more shots rang out. The horse threw up its head, heavy crest catching Charlie in a whack in the face, and screamed. It’s stride faltered, staggering to the left..

They’d reached the road, hooves hitting dusty tarmac instead of dirt. Charlie spat dirt and horse sweat out of her mouth and pushed the horse on. They ran through the dark, galloping in out around the gutted cars left abandoned on the road. Ahead, on the walls of San Angelo, lanterns glowed on the walls and someone yelled a warning to stop.

This time the shot came from ahead of them. It hit the tarmac in front of the horse’s hoofs, sending chips of tarmac flying like shrapnel. That was the last straw as far as the horse was concerned. It stopped dead, half-rearing and huffed billows of panicked steam into the night air.

Charlie hung on - barely, her arm was starting to go numb - and squinted up at the top of the wall.

‘Ranger!’ she yelled, voice cracking. ‘Company F, out of Waco.’

‘Commander?’

‘Collins. I’m with Sergeant Cossick’s company.’ She waited, watching the lanterns swing as they conferred. Irritation jabbed at her as she cradled her bad arm. She could feel blood squelch under her sleeve. She raised her voice, stealing the bitter snap of command she’d seen Miles and Monroe use. ‘I’m not here to sight see. Open the gates.’

‘I...of course, Ranger,’ one of the guards yelled. ‘I’ll open the gates now. Sorry.’

The gates were huge walls of soldered metal, dented and scorched. It took three guards to each gate to drag them open. Charlie rode the limping horse into San Angelo and slid out of the saddle, shoving the reins at the youngest guard.

‘Take care of him? He’s a good horse.’ She swung her attention to the man not pushing the gate. ‘Who’s in command? There’s Patriots setting up an attack out there, and I need to get back to my company.’

The man raised his impressively bushy eyebrows at her. ‘Patriots?’ he rumbled dubiously. ‘We’ve not had any reports of trouble.’

Charlie showed him her bloody hand. ‘Now you do.’

He grimaced, but nodded. ‘I’m Sheriff Palin. I sent someone up to the Cactus when we saw you coming in’ he said. ‘The General will be here shortly. Sit down, we’ll get that arm patched. Ranger…?’

‘Porter, Nora Porter.’ Charlie said. The lie was familiar enough by now. She carefully lifted her bow over her head, biting her lip as it jarred her shoulder, and eased, one handed and awkward, out of her jacket. Blood caked her sleeve to her arm from shoulder to wrist. ‘It looks worse than it is, I think.’

She heard the soft mutter of ‘sirs’ approaching and straightened up. It looked like she would have to wait to get patched up. Palin didn’t try and argue, he just stepped back and looked nervous. Charlie made a good faith effort at standing to attention, only to abandon it when she saw the General in the middle of the cordon of bodyguards.

It wasn’t Blanchard.

She noticed he was as clean shaven as he was on the posters. It had never been much of a disguise anyhow. People remembered a monster as pretty as Monroe. He stared at her, eyes narrowed as if he was wondering what to do with her.

‘General Monroe.’

‘Charlotte.’

‘You’ve got an outbreak of Patriots,’ she said, shifting her arm so she wasn’t dripping on her boots. ‘I was on a supply run with Company F when we spotted them taking up position. My sergeant is still out there with the rest of the Rangers. I need to get back.’

Monroe dropped his eyes to her arm and then back to her face. His voice was scathing. ‘What are you going to do? Bleed on the Patriots? Sit down. I’ll send my men out to find your lost lambs.’ He turned to bark out orders at his bodyguard, commandeering one of Palin’s young guards to carry orders across town. Without looking around he added. ‘Get her to the surgeon, Palin. Or do I have to carry her there myself?’

 

 


	3. Monroe

Dead Patriots.

No answers.

Bass paced the Cactus’ best suite impatiently, swigging whiskey and tapping his fingers on his thigh. There should have been no way the Patriots knew he was here. Only three people should have known his whereabouts.

‘There’s a leak,’ he muttered, stopping at the tall, arched window to stare down at the quiet, sun-bleached streets. His teeth worried at the inside of his mouth, biting at his lips until he tasted blood. ‘Probably Blanchard. The man already took one Patriot into his house, and his bed. What’s another.’

Hell, Blanchard could be the traitor. Anyone could if the Patriots could hold of them long enough. Bass gulped down the last mouthful of sourmash whiskey, letting it burn his gut as he thought about easily he could be surrounded by enemies.

Even Charlie. It was convenient how she’d turned up just in the nick of time to warn him about the Patriots. Suspicion filled his brain like a fog, choking him until the blood thumped in his ears. He clenched his hand around the tumbler until his fingers ached and breathed through the attack. The back of his throat tasted like hot sand and greasy bamia, pushing up out of his memory like vomit.

_Tarmac hot enough to sting, sticking to his palms and the knees of his uniform in stringy clots of gravel, and red fading in and out to black in the corner of his eye. His ears were ringing. Years of listening to his sister plunking her way up and down the piano meant he knew it as high C. He crawled away from the heat at his back, coughing smoke and the stink of burned flesh out of his throat. His arms gave way as he reached the scruff of grass at the embankment, and he face-planted into the dirt. It wasn't his ears ringing, he realised. Someone was screaming._

_Flagg._

_Probably Flagg. Shit._

_Trainers appeared in front of Bass' nose and Adnan crouched down, kufiya hanging loose around his neck and face blank. The memory of their last conversation filled Bass' head, laughing over cards as Bass begged off a dog race because he'd be...here._

_Bass felt the glass crack in his fingers, the slice of pain across his palm cutting through the fog. He looked down, watching blood well from under the sliver of raised skin and smear over the glass. His mouth was dry and he swore he could smell the grease of old sweat on his skin._

The stupid thing, he thought distantly as he put the glass down, was that he had been fine. A bit bloody, a bit battered, but they'd stitched him up and put his foot in plaster and he was good as new.

Then his family died, and he realised that there was no left he could really trust. No-one, except Miles and the Marines. After the Blackout, all he was left was Miles. If Bass ended up back in that dark, sour hole, Miles was the only one who’d care enough to come pull him out.

Until he didn’t any more.

He lifted the bottle of whiskey and slugged it down, looking for numbness. Charlie might want him dead, but she wasn’t a liar. He’d seen her try, it was pathetic. If the Patriot’s had her long enough to break her, Miles would have come begging by now.

Whatever she was doing, it wasn’t about Bass. He was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment at that. That was something he thought he’d killed months ago. He washed it away with whiskey, because that always solved everything.

 


	4. Chapter 4

San Angelo, Texas

 

Charlie woke up in a much nicer bed than the one she’d gone to sleep in. The mattress felt like a cloud under her and cool, slippery sheets draped over her body. Charlie scrubbed her hand over face without opening her eyes, movement twinging pain across her shoulders and down her side, and weighed the pros and cons of getting up, versus pulling the sheet over her head and pretending to be dead.

A hinge creaked. A latch clicked.

Giving her eyes another scrub, picking sleep out of the corners, Charlie lifted her head out of the pillows. The curtains were pulled back, flooding the room with light and making her squint. Monroe was standing in front of the wardrobe, his back to her as he stripped. Long bands of muscle in his back flexed and bunched in smooth, hard-worked groups as he shrugged his shirt off. Her eyes tracked from the nape of his neck - the hair prickly short where he’d cropped it - over his shoulders and down to his hips, all hard lines and honey-tanned skin.

The quick, hard clench of awareness hit her the way it always did, unexpectedly and with no regard for the fact it was him she was looking at.

Monroe grabbed a clean shirt and pulled it on, adjusting the collar and cuffs fastidiously before turning around. His fingers worked their way down the front of the shirt with a precision that fluttered fresh heat through Charlie’s stomach, for reasons she wasn’t going to go into. Not even with herself.

‘You’ve gotten complacent,’ he said. ‘I could have been anyone.’

No. Charlie hadn’t been surprised to see him. She still knew how he moved around the room, the sound of his breathing, the smell of too-early whiskey.

‘Actually, I was hoping you were the cute doctor,’ she said. Her mouth hurt when she talked, her probing tongue finding a scabbed lip. Lifting the sheet she checked under it to see if she was naked. Not quite, she was wearing her bra and panties. Decent enough. She sat up gingerly, feeling new aches and pains settle in as she moved. Her arm had a single strip of bandage roughly wound around it. Minimal enough that she felt slightly embarrassed by how much it hurt. It felt weak. Miles would shrug a flesh wound like that off and kill five people with their own knives. 'Why am I in your bed?'

He tucked his shirt into his trousers. 'Because I didn't want you sneaking out before we got to talk. Nora.'

There were a lot of questions in that tautly pronounced name. Charlie pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them. Her hair fell around her shoulders, sticking to sleep damp skin. She frowned at the mark on her arm, picking at the scar with her nail.

‘I tried to join the militia when I was 16,’ she said. Monroe stopped with his jacket half on, staring at her. ‘I just wanted to get away, from the farming and the winters and taking care of my brother. From my Dad.’

That hung between like a ghost, cold and clay-heavy as the dirt they’d buried her Dad in. A glance and a grimace took a short-cut through the familiar dance of accusation and excuse. They had done it so often, there was no point in going through it again. There was nothing to gain, and nothing that could be forgotten.

‘A lot of things would have been different if you had,’ Monroe said. ‘What happened.’

‘Some guy pulled me out of the queue to sign up, offered to fast track me if I spread my legs,’ Charlie said. ‘Said that was the only thing the militia needed women for. I wasn’t interested in being a whore, so I hit him with a brick and went back home.’

Anger flashed cold and empty through Monroe’s eyes. ‘Do you remember his name?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Charlie looked around the room for her clothes. They were folded over a chair in the corner, next to the window. ‘I’m not… Look, I just don’t want to be safe. I never wanted to safe. I want to do things, go places.’

She tossed the sheet back and slid out of bed. After travelling with Monroe for a month, she wasn’t going to pretend he’d not seen her naked, or close to it, a couple of times. She padded over to the chair, the carpet thick and soft under her feet, and grabbed her trousers. Habit made her give them a brisk shake before stepping into them.

‘Where,’ Monroe asked.

She hitched the trousers up over her bottom and sucked her stomach in to fasten them. ‘Chicago, Detroit, Toronto.’ It was stupid, but her fingers still remembered the slick shine of those old postcards. She could recite the ‘wish you were here’s’ that had been written on the back. ‘...anywhere they’d not ask me to wipe snotty noses and harvest turnips.’

‘What about California?’

She turned around, shirt dangling from her hand. ‘What?’

Monroe glanced down, eyes grazing the soft swell of her breasts, and didn’t bother to look away. Pretend she didn’t care as much as she liked, but Charlie couldn’t stop the faint flush and the feeling of breathlessness that made her want to breathe faster. She hated him. It didn’t help.

‘I’m going to California,’ Monroe said. ‘The Patriots plan didn’t quite work, but it came too close. We need to fix it. Come with me.’

‘Is that invite for me, or just my boobs?’ she asked.

He grinned, that ridiculous, face-lighting smile that Charlie would bet was why no-one could ever quite bring themselves to kill him. They thought that no-one who smiled like that could be past saving, past learning. Charlie thought they were idiots, but at least they had an excuse. She knew what he was, but still…

‘You,’ he said. ‘Although I’d miss them if they didn’t come along.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Then put your shirt on,’ he said, charm getting put away. The gravelly edge of anger, or hunger, scraped at Charlie’s insides like a cat’s tongue. God, she swallowed, maybe she should have screwed that farm boy before she’d left. His eyes finally flicked up to her face, want raw enough in them that she knew screwing the farm boy wouldn’t be enough. ‘Or get back into bed. Up to you, Nora.’

Charlie slowly, deliberately, put her shirt on and buttoned it up. ‘Why?’

‘Because Miles won’t drag himself out of your mother’s cold bed long enough to go down the road, never mind California,’ he said. ‘You’re better than no-one.’

She crossed her arms. ‘I told Miles I was going to Canada. He won’t come looking for me.’

There was a beat and Monroe scratched his throat absently, glancing away from her. When he looked back, he was frowning. It made him look open, honest - even though Charlie knew he never was. ‘I trust you, Charlie. Not Blanchard. Not Appleton. You.’

‘Because my surname’s Matheson.’

‘Not just that,’ Monroe said. He walked over and chucked his finger under her chin, lifting her face so she had to look at him. His voice was low and intimate, rough against his tongue. ‘Because you hate me right up here where I can see it, because you cut a man’s throat to save my life outside Memphis … and because your surname’s Matheson.’

She rolled her eyes and reached up to push his hand away, her fingers wrapping around his wrist just as Monroe’s thumb grazed across her lip. Her breath hitched, jerking at her chest like a line, but he just stepped away from her like the moment hadn’t happened at all. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe she’d just bumped his hand.

‘It’s up to you. We leave tomorrow morning. Come with me, Charlie, or stay here and play Nora.’ He turned and headed for the door, pausing as he opened it to look back over at her. ‘It was a good choice, in retrospect. Being a Ranger, doing good work for good people, would have been enough for her. What about you, Charlie? Is that what you want?’

He strode out without waiting for an answer, letting the door shut behind him. Charlie stood there in her bare feet, shirt only half-buttoned, and glared after him.

‘You don’t know me,’ she said. Turning around she looked out of the window, waiting until she saw Monroe stride out into the sun shine. His bodyguard fell in behind him, keeping pace with him. ‘Being a Ranger is enough. Doing good is enough.’

She couldn’t even convince herself.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

People lined the streets to cheer, waving their hats and firing guns in the air. Freshly printed flags, the ink smudging where it was still wet, flapped from windows and the hands of small children. Monroe had gone from monster to hero, from Prince John to King Richard. No-one seemed to remember that the Patriots had only lied about one of the terrible things he’d done.

Charlie sat on the steps outside the Cactus, elbow braced on her knee as she checked her weapons with habitual efficiency. Once, to make a point, Monroe had taken her gun apart when she was asleep and made her put it together as they drove.

She holstered her gun and rehooked her sword to her belt, wiping oil off her hands on a rag. The rag, oil and whetstone were shoved in her bag, and she buckled it shut. Across the courtyard Monroe was smiling and clasping hands with the assembled San Angelo officials, competing with an ostentatiously good ole boy performance from Blanchard. The big Texan had arrived the night before, accompanied by two pretty, sly-eyed girls who were his ‘nurses’.

A jerk tightened the last strap on Charlie’s satchel, and that was it. She was out of delaying tactics. Go or stay.

She stood up, hefting the bag up and swinging it onto her shoulder. A few of the Rangers nodded at her, others ignored her. It wasn’t as if she was the first to join the Rangers under a false name, but her connection to Monroe was harder for them to understand.

They could join the club.

Charlie headed across the courtyard, meaning to lurk until Monroe was done playing magnanimous hero. Instead he stopped talking to the Sheriff and waved her over, ignoring her glare. With everyone looking at her, Charlie didn’t see a way out of joining them. She hitched her bag up and sidled over.

‘So this is Nora Porter?’ Blanchard said, looking her up and down appreciatively. ‘I can see why you were taken with her, Monroe. Pretty little thing, even if she is a liar.’

Monroe’s hand rested on her back, between her shoulders. She gritted her teeth against the tickling itch of awareness running down her spine.

‘If you’re going to drum out all the rangers who aren’t using the name’s they were born with,’ she said. ‘Your ranks are going to be mighty thin, General Blanchard.’

‘President, darlin’,’ he said, winking at her. ‘Second term, they’re thinkin’ of voting me in for my lifetime. Ain’t that right, Sebastian.’

There was an edge to his smile. Charlie glanced between them, raising her eyebrows at Monroe. He did the ‘going to tell you later’ face which usually meant ‘going to tell you never’.

‘You’re a sucker for punishment, Frank,’ he drawled. Blanchard’s eyes narrowed. ‘By the time they let you retire, you’ll be a walnut.’

Charlie smothered a laugh with a hand against her mouth, trying to make it sound like a cough. From the glare, it didn’t fool Blanchard.

‘Her real name’s Charlotte,’ Monroe said smoothly. ‘Charlie Matheson.’

Blanchard’s impressive eyebrows went up, he glanced at where Monroe’s hand rested and then roared with laughter. ‘Hell with it man,’ he chuckled, slapping Monroe on the shoulder. ‘No matter what you get up to, I gotta admire your balls, and your taste.’

Still chuckling he took his leave, the San Angelo officials falling in behind him like charisma-concussed ducklings. Charlie glared after him. From this distance she could put a dagger in that fat ass, he could appreciate Monroe’s ‘taste’ then.

‘He’d enjoy it,’ Monroe murmured the reminder in her ear, shifting his hand up to her shoulder.

Charlie shrugged it off. ‘I know what you’re doing, Monroe,’ she said. ‘I just don’t care. You and Miles can play out whatever weird psychodrama you have going on without me.’

His eyes hooded, and he said sardonically, ‘Rachel just knows something about everything, doesn’t it.’

The answer was probably, and that yeah, Charlie found it annoying too sometimes. She wasn’t stupid - she knew her letters and her figures and how to calculate a bullet’s trajectory. That was more than most people her age. Her mom still made her feel stupid sometimes. Even worse, she could see that her mom thought she was stupid sometimes.

‘Why California?’ she asked. ‘I expected you to be digging in, trying to cut your slice of the new Alliance.’

He tightened his mouth and glanced around, eyes flicking coldly over the faces around them. ‘Against Blanchard? In Texas? Even if Miles got his balls back from Rachel and came to play, I’d not bet on us. That fat man can do no wrong far as any of these star-spangled idiots are concerned.’

Charlie flipped her jacket back so he could see the star pinned to her belt. He glanced down at it and up, snorting at her.

‘Really?’ he said. ‘You want me to believe you’re Lone Star proud? I know you better than that, Charlie. You’re not a sheep, don’t get in line to be sheared. I won’t deny I have plans in California, but if you want to know what they are? Tag along.’

He strode away from her, swinging up into the saddle of his sleek spotted horse. Charlie followed him, dismissing the young groom clinging to the bridle with a smile. Hooking her fingers through the cheek straps of the bridle, hair rough against her fingers, she looked up at Monroe. The sun was in her eyes, making her squint and casting Monroe in stark planes of light and shadow.

‘Is Conor in California?’ she asked. ‘Is that what this is about? Your 'dynasty'?’

Violence was never far away with Monroe. Some people had a fight or flight reaction, all Monroe had was fight. It was his first recourse, his only recourse if he had his way. It wasn’t often Charlie had felt the chest tightening feeling that it might be aimed at her. Only twice in fact, once in that shabby workroom with a lackey’s gun in her face and today. It pushed at the air between, taut as a bladder, and then, just as quickly, deflated.

Monroe leaned down in the saddle, bracing his elbow on his thigh. ‘I haven’t seen my son since he tried to kill me in Willoughby,’ he said. His voice was all smooth charm, layered over emptiness like a mask. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll probably turn up in five years to give it another go. Now get out of my way, Charlie.’

She stood her ground long enough to make her point, then patted the horse’s neck and stepped back. Monroe rode out, waving genially at the cheering crowd. The rest of the delegation fell in behind him, riders in their new crimson uniforms and carts rumbling over the cobbles with heavy, iron shod tires. The newly minted A symbol was everywhere Charlie looked.

It looked good, every bit the benevolent hero leading the parade. Except under that easy charm Monroe was crawling out of his skin waiting for the shot from the roof or the knife in the dark. Give it a month and he’d be back to his old atrocities, and that smile and velvet voice would drag everyone along with him.

‘Oh hell,’ Charlie sighed. She collared a stable boy and told him to get her a horse. Monroe needed someone to watch his back, and he needed to be watched. The only one who could do both was Charlie, and so what if it was what she wanted to do too? That was her problem.

She caught up with him on the outskirts of town, trotting past the rest of the train and pulling her compact dun mare in next to him. His guards frowned at her and then looked at him, her confidence throwing them off. A slight nod made them relax and drop back, so he could smirk at her.

‘I figured you’d hold out until this evening,’ he said. ‘But you couldn’t even be parted from me that long? I’m flattered, Captain Matheson.’

'Shut up,' she grumbled. Then, ‘Captain?’

‘You’re in the army now, Charlie,’ Monroe said, smiling thinly. ‘My army.’


	6. Chapter 6

Toreva, Wastelands

 

The tent-cities of Nevada blurred into the landscape, sun-faded buff canvas against sun-faded dirt. According to their guide, a hard old man with a tan the colour of the dirt, some had been settled in one place for years, others picked up and moved with the sun.

Toreva was different. Clay brick and barbed wire walls were built up around it, walling the spring away. Men stood watch at the gates, guns slung over buckskin clad shoulders, and at the shift-change a dozen dusty scouts would come marching down from the hills. Carts rolled in and out, sweating barrels strapped down in the wooden beds.

It had been here since a few months after the Blackout, when the locals realised how valuable water was about to turn.

Charlie sat next to Monroe in his tent, quietly sweating through the uniform. Texas had been hot. The wastelands were like an anvil, with the sun as a hammer. On the other side of the table Lewis Kabotie played with a heavy silver pen, making it dance between his fingers, as he listened to Colonel May lay out their offer.

‘We could do that,’ he said, as May’s finished on a dry, rasping note. ‘Or we could not, and take what we wanted from your dried corpses.’

Charlie shifted in the chair. She could feel the sweat sticking her trousers to her thighs. ‘And Toreva turns into just another bandit outpost.’

Kabotie pulled a dubious face and tapped his pen on the desk, his eyebrows tilting together. ‘I don’t think many would condemn the loss of General Massacre Monroe. Last year, someone might have named a holiday after me.’

A quick, sidelong glance at Monroe didn’t catch so much as a crack of his pleasantly affable facade. Self-control wasn’t something that Charlie would usually associate with Monroe. This was a man Charlie’d had to physically block from starting a fight with someone because they’d watered down the whiskey. If Kabotie’s insults bothered him though, he was keeping to himself.

‘Things change,’ he said. ‘I was framed by the Patriots, because they wanted to weaken us. They failed and my name was cleared.’

‘And you sent your unwanted Patriots to us,’ Kabotie pointed out, smacking his hand on the desk. ‘You call us the Wastelands, and we embrace the name. It kept the greedy fingers of three warlords off our territory.’

Monroe brought his hand up to his face, his thumb resting against his cheek and his fingers folded over his lips. ‘There’s also the fact it’s an arid, unprofitable desert and no wanted it.’

‘Our arid, unprofitable desert,’ Kabotie said. ‘Now we have your vermin flooding the borders.’

‘If we settle our differences with California-’

‘If Texas settles its differences with California, you will squeeze the Wastelands like a vice to get your enemies. Then divide our land between you for your trouble.’ Kabotie stopped, shrugged and sat back in his chair. One hand fiddled with the necklace he wore, counting off the heavy links like a rosary. ‘Of course, that assumes your differences with Garner can be resolved.’

‘Why wouldn’t they? Monroe Republic or Texas, we’ve no personal grievance with California.’

A thin smile creased Kabotie’s face. ‘Personal. Interesting word. There are so many different things that people take personally aren’t there?’

He stood up abruptly. It startled Charlie enough that she grabbed for her sword, getting her feet under her. It was Monroe who steadied her, a hand on her wrist.

Kabotie straightened his jacket. ‘You’ll get your water, at the terms offered. One condition.’

‘What?’

‘You send a man back to Blanchard,’ Kabotie said. ‘When this delegation doesn’t come back, the Wastelands would be willing to look at an alliance with Texas.’

The silence was sharp enough to cut. Monroe inclined his head to consider the offer, idly stirring the clutter of notes and maps on the table his hand. Refusal wasn’t really an option. They needed water and  supplies. If they didn’t trade for them, they’d have to fight. Not just the Toreva guards either. It would be an act of war.

She chewed the inside of her lip and waited.

‘Agreed,’ Monroe said abruptly. He stood up and gestured to Mays. ‘The Colonel will make arrangements for the supplies, and Captain Matheson will send one of our scouts back to Texas. Satisfactory.’

After a suspicious second, Kabotie nodded. ‘That is more than satisfactory. Good luck in California, General.’

He inclined his head and left, trailed by his guards. A dip of Monroe’s chin sent May striding after them. Charlie stayed, folding her legs up under her on the chair.

‘At least we’ve got the water,’ she said.

Monroe grunted, striding over to a cabinet to splash whisky into a travel-scratched tumbler.‘And I will remember just how helpful the Wastelanders have been once this is over. Squeeze them a vice? I’ll scour this arid patch of hell on earth down to the stone, salt what’s left and leave them to dry up and blow away. When I am finished, the only water these bastards will have will be blood.’

He tossed the whiskey back without a grimace and slammed it back down on the cabinet.

‘Good plan,’ Charlie said. ‘Now that no-one is blaming you for nuking the East Coast, they might think you’ve gone soft.’

Monroe grunted and refilled his glass, walking back over to stand behind her. ‘If it a choice between being liked and feared, Charlie, I’ll take fear. It gets more done,’ he tapped her shoulder. ‘While Mays is busy, go over the scouting reports. What are we looking at on the route?’

It had been a surprise to find out that Monroe expected his pet captain, to do actual captaining. In the Rebels, all she’d had to do was follow Miles and hit things. Fighting the Patriots had been...pretty much the same thing. Every now and again she’d dig her heels in over something, but mostly she just tagged along.

The final decision was always his, but he wanted her opinions.

Sometimes, she knew, it was because he wanted noise in his head that wasn’t internally provided. On the way to Willoughby, he goaded her into fights whenever they camped. Now he could order her to talk.

Still, he listened. It was hard to resist, hard not to feel that thrill of satisfaction when he nodded agreement with something. That bothered her. At night she dreamed about walking with Monroe on one side and Danny on the other, but the only one she could hear was Monroe.

‘Do you miss Miles?’ he asked suddenly, interrupting her mid-navigation on the map.

Charlie looked up, pushing her hair back from her face. ‘I…of course,’ she said.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘What.’

She sighed and sat back. Working with Monroe meant whiskey. She didn’t drink as much as him, but she’d sipped enough to feel warm and...honest.

‘I miss him before...’ She chewed her lips and tried to think of a way to say it that wasn’t cruel. Nothing came to mind. ‘I miss him before he met my mom again.’

Monroe laughed. His hair was sticking up in unruly curls and amusement creased the corners of his eyes. ‘I thought I was the only one that thought she was a -.’

‘Mother,’ Charlie interrupted, voice sharp. ‘My mother, remember. It isn’t that. I’m happy for them, they waited long enough. It’s just that after Philadelphia, it felt like I became a responsibility? He promised my mom he’d take care of him. Before that we’d been...partners? I guess.’

She grimaced and rubbed her hand over her face, pulling at the corners of her lips. ‘And I guess I’ve had enough to drink. I should go.’

Bracing her hands on the table she pushed herself to her feet. Her head swam, the heat and booze suddenly deciding to hit her hard. Monroe didn’t say anything until she got to the tent-flap,

‘I miss that Miles too,’ he said. ‘And you. I missed you, Charlie.’

She fled. Not even bothering trying to pretend she was doing anything else.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Charlie lay on the narrow cot in her tent - her own tent, privileges of rank - and tried to sleep. Her skin was wet with sweat and her stomach ached with a low, dull hunger. She fidgeted, shifted and slid her hand down her stomach, fingers skimming over the soft skin of her thigh. Except she couldn't do that without thinking about him. Not tonight.

_The first time had been outside Abilene._

_There was a noose around her neck. Charlie slid-fell off the horse and wrenched at it, ripping her nails on the rough hemp. Her throat felt raw, outside and in, and her heart was beating so fast it made her feel sick. She could still feel the pitch in her gut as the horse had lunged from under her, the scrape of rope at her throat and then a pop in her ears dropped her to the ground._

_Later she'd be impressed with Monroe's marksmanship. Not yet._

_'Here,' Monroe said impatiently, pulling her up and sliding a knife under the noose. 'You'd think no-one had ever tried to hang you before.'_

_The tip of the knife nicked her jaw as he cut the rope and, for some ridiculous reason, that prick of pain as the last straw. Charlie punched him. No technique, just pummelling his arms and shoulders as he back pedaled._

_'It was your fault. Everyone hates you, you sonofabitch. I hate you. Mum hates you. Miles hates you. The only people that didn't hate you are dead.'_

_He just absorbed it, eyes empty and cold as if there was nothing there for her to hurt. Eventually she ran out of steam - there was less satisfaction in battering Monroe than she'd imagined._

_'Charlotte -'_

_She kissed him, clenching a hand in his shirt and mashing her mouth over his. A lucky blow had got through his guard, split his lip against his teeth, and she tasted blood and him. Then his hands were in her hair, dragging her close, and his tongue was in her mouth. There was nothing sweet about it, nothing tender._

_He shoved her against a tree, growling frustration against her throat as his fingers got tangled in her belt. She'd shoved him away to do it herself, pushing her jeans down around her thighs. Habit slid her fingers between her legs, finding slick wetness._

_'Well?' she'd asked, ragged challenge in her scratchy voice. 'Or do I have to do everything myself?'_

_'Shut up, Charlie,' he'd growled, shoving her hands out of the way. His belt was twisted around one fist, keeping his sword to hand. Some very twisted part of Charlie wrung tight at that, aching heat pulling at her. Maybe if it hadn't, when he hesitated - cock nudging at the crease of her thighs - and whispered ‘Charlie..,' in an aching uncertain voice, she'd have told him no._

_Instead she just grabbed him shirt and pulled him closer, lips parting eagerly as he bent his head to kiss her again. Her gasp when he thrust, the length of him shoving roughly into her, was lost against the dampness of his lips._

_It wasn’t lovemaking, like her Dad had awkwardly described when she hit puberty. It wasn’t even fucking, which she’d found out for herself in the back of a hay cart. It was more like a fight, fucking out the tension so they wouldn’t kill each other._

_She came twice, once when he was inside her and once after - his fingers clever between her come sticky thighs. Then they’d just tugged their clothes back into place and headed out._

Charlie shifted, the damp memory clenching her thighs and adding more pink to her flushed skin. She rubbed her hand over the back of her neck, fingers sliding in sweat, and kicked the damp sheet off her in frustration. Maybe she should take advantage of the stop-over and go find someone to scratch her itch. Stop her turning over old memories like they mattered.

Bad idea that never happened, they’d both agreed that on their way into Willoughby.

Rachel could never know. Miles could never know.

Charlie hadn’t been ashamed. She’d tried to be, but fucking Monroe wasn’t forgiving him. There had been no way to explain that to Rachel though. It was hard enough - too many years lost, too many doubts unspoken and spoken - without added complications.

What Monroe felt… It wasn’t something they talked about, but he’d not risk anything coming between him and Miles. She’d had the feeling he saw delivering her to Willoughby unsullied - as far as anyone else was concerned - as a peace offering.

‘I could have, but didn’t - far as you know.’

Her mouth tilted in a self-mocking smile. Or maybe she just liked to pretend Monroe was more pathetic than she was.

* * *

The Old Las Vegas, December

Sand filled the streets of Vegas, silting up long-dried fountains and blowing into dunes against the side of buildings. It was mostly abandoned, the civilians fled west to more watered climes. Other than scavengers - human and animal - the only people in Vegas these days were soldiers. It was the heavily armed outpost of the California Republic, their fingerhold in the Wasteland, and the only way to get a passport to Santa Barbara. Charlie craned her neck, one shading her eyes, as she stared up at the crumbling ruins of old hotels.

‘Is that the Eiffel Tower?’ she asked, pointing at the barbed-wire wrapped edifice. A wooden cab was built around the top of it, shuttered mirrors glittering dimly along the guard rail.

‘Call me Sam’, their guide/guard, laughed at her. ‘I guess you were too young to see the original, but you’ve seriously never been to Vegas before?’

‘No,’ Charlie said.

A beat later Monroe corrected her. ‘Once.’

She gave him a dubious look. ‘I don’t remember that...’

‘You were little. Miles was on furlough and Rachel brought you by to meet him.’

Oh. Back when Rachel was still married to Dad. That was uncomfortable to think about. She frowned and dropped her hand. Taking pity on her, Sam leaned over and patted her leg.

‘Used to be, what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas,’ he said.

‘And these days,’ Monroe asked, voice gravel low and velvety.

Anyone who knew him, knew he was like a dog that wagged instead of snarled. That voice, that easy smile that never touched his eyes, meant it was time to back down. Harry just smiled back at him, all tan and sun-tipped brown hair.

‘Now?’ Sam waved his hand at the California militia escorting them, leathery, wiry men with guns held easily in bony hands. ‘Now we send the effects back to their families.’

He didn’t bother to veil the threat. When you had all the firepower, you didn’t need to make any pretences about your situation. With one last wink at Charlie he strode over to talk to the cold eyed soldier who’d brought them into the city.

‘Stop flirting with the locals,’ Monroe said quietly, lips barely moving and eyes hooded. He’d quit shaving, back to the scruff of beard she’d gotten used to when travelling with him.

Charlie looked away from the fake castle in the middle of the desert at him, then checked out Sam again. ‘Why should I? He looks clean enough.’

‘He’s too young for you.’

That earned him a slow, dubious side-eye from Charlie. ‘Seriously?’

He ignored her. ‘Besides, if this goes south? His is the throat you need to cut,’ Monroe said. ‘He’s Garner’s son. Her youngest, in fact.’

‘Bite me,’ Charlie told him pleasantly. ‘And we aren’t here to take hostages, we’re on a diplomatic mission remember.’

Monroe looked at her curiously and scratched his chin with his thumb, nail scratching through the short bristles. ‘Now, who told you that was what we were here for?’

Before Charlie could come up with an answer they reached Fort MGM. At the peeling old lion the commanders bodyguard took their weapons, frisking them down with impersonal thoroughness. Once they were disarmed - Charlie made a quiet bet with herself that Bass still had some weapon tucked away somewhere - Sam lead them into the fading gilt and glitter grandeur of the old building.


	8. Monroe

There was something rotten in the Republic of California. Bass could smell the weakness of it, just waiting to be exploited. This was one of Garner's most vital outposts, but it was also the most remote. So why was her son and heir exiled here, without a command of his own? Why were the soldiers wearing mismatched uniforms and their commander stinking of booze?

Even the guns they carried around like scary security blankets were a dead giveaway. Half of them didn't have bullets - you could tell by the way their trigger discipline slipped - so it was pure intimidation. And people sure they'd win didn't bother with intimidating their opponents. They just ended them.

So, Blanchard's intel on Garner's state of mind was looking more accurate by the day. Even if Bass didn't appreciate the way he'd put it.

'Crazy as a shithouse rat,' the Texan had drawled. 'Crazy as you on a Tuesday, Sebastian.'

Bass could see the strings to pull. A few drinking sessions with the men, so they could see how much better he treated his militia; the commander was a bad bottle of whiskey away from a fatal, unsympathetic mistake; and all Sam Garner needed to seal his disaffection was a pretty girl with too much idealism to fake.

He grimaced and drained the bottle of tequila. It tasted like white spirits and worm. He preferred whiskey, but this would do to get him drunk.

Drunk enough not to care that the last time he was here he'd been with Miles, coaxing his best friend into having a good time after that Rachel had scraped the poor, lovelorn sod's heart into the dust again. Back in Jasper his family had been alive - he'd face timed his sister from the hotel room before heading out to see showgirls with Miles. He remembered that. He remembered that she'd pierced her nose and rolled her eyes at him, but he couldn't remember what they'd talked about. She'd gone pink when she'd heard Miles hammering at the door, told Bass to give his friend her love. Then giggled and had to sign off.

It had been a good weekend. They'd picked up showgirls and Bass had gotten Miles to laugh for the first time since he'd heard he had a new niece. Dragging their drunk ass to the airport at godawful o'clock on Monday they'd made plans to come back for a week one day. One year.

'It'll kill us,' Miles cracked sprawling lengthwise along the cheap plastic chairs and sliding a pair of freshly bought shades onto his nose, 'But fuck me, what a way to go, brother.'

Somewhere in Bass's mind he'd kept that plan in amber, even after his family died, the world ended and his family died again. Someday, somehow, he'd imagined them both watching pretty girls in feathers shake their asses while slot machines took idiots money.

Right here. In the Luxor.

Instead, the only woman in the joint was a dull-eyed whore, with sores around her mouth and in the creases of her arms. When Bass had walked in she'd sidled up to him, delivering her rates in a flat monotone. She smelled like death. Not unwashed, although that too, but like someone who'd died and not gotten around to lying down yet.

Bass turned the tequila bottle upside down, an oily clear drop sliding off the glass to land on the table. There wasn't much varnish left on the wood. What there was, the tequila took off.

He gripped the neck of the bottle and waved it at the bartender. 'Another. One the rats haven't pissed in this time.'

The fat man behind the bar smirked and nodded, his piggy little eyes cutting sideways to the toughs slouched along the bar. The slightest shake of his head and they relaxed back into their flab. Hyenas. They couldn't even take on an impaired opponent, they wanted him comatose.

Well, fuck them. He grinned at them until they looked uncomfortable, and toasted them with the bottle when the bartender brought it over. He could be so drunk he couldn't piss down his own leg, and he could still kill. Kill and throw a curveball. His two big talents, and look where it had got him.

Bass slouched down on the splintered chair, feeling the legs shift under him, and twisted the lid off the bottle. Even Miles would think this place was depressing, and he’d been impressed by the one-legged stripper.

Liquor would help. It always did. Drink enough this shit stain of a world started to seem like something worth having.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Charlie stopped in the street to stare. She didn’t remember what it was like before, not really. The frosty chill of popsicles, the squeak of rubber wheels on bleached hospital floors and brightly coloured animals on a glowing screen.  Bits and pieces, the scraps of a life she might have had. When they’d been trying to turn the power back on, she’d imagined a world not much different. She’d imagined a world with better weapons and lights on at night.

Then she saw something like this, and realised just different things had been. It was a pyramid of black glass, catching the sun and surrounding buildings in the slick surface. Charlie couldn’t even imagine where to start, building something like that. She didn’t know how someone even came up with the idea for something like that.

It was beautiful - even dulled with sand scratches and with panels missing. According to the Republic soldiers, it was also the nastiest drinking hole this side of Miles’ bar in Chicago. If Monroe was going to hole up anywhere, this is where she’d find him.

Then what?

He’d been right. No one had told her this was a diplomatic mission. She’d always known Monroe had something nasty, and probably bloody, up his sleeve. Was it really such a surprise that it was officially sanctioned? The Allied States might have a clean, new flag, but the people involved were dirty enough to get into bed with Monroe.

Charlie wasn’t sure if her own hypocrisy, or the sweaty heat that pushed her into moving. She wiped her sleeve over her forehead and walked over the pitted firepit in front of the Luxor, shoving the heavy doors open. The smell of layered sweat and cheap booze rolled out over her. She paused in the doorway, foot braced against the glass, as she waited for her eyes to adjust.

She was sorry when they did.

As if in reaction to the shining exterior, the interior was coated with grease and dust. The carpet looked like it had been here since the Blackout, stained and ripped in places to reveal the rough stone underneath. Smeared paint from ancient vandalism coated the walls, half heartedly scrubbed a shade later in spots. In one corner a group of lean, dusty looking men nursed beers and studiously avoided looking at the fat-marbled toughs by the bar.

The other corner had been claimed by Monroe, booted legs sprawled aggressively out in front of him. A bottle of clear liquor and a glass sat on the table in front of him. He was only making use of one.

Charlie put her hand on the hilt of her sword and gave the tough’s a crooked Matheson grin. It wasn’t quite as daunting as Monroe’s mad grin, but it back them down a bit. Keeping an eye on them out of the corner of her eye, she walked over to Monroe. He kicked a chair out for her. She grabbed it, turned it to the corner and sat down next to him.

‘Remember that bar near New Vegas?’ she said.

He poured a splash of liquor into the tumblr and pushed it toward her with a finger. ‘No...' he cocked his head to the side, looking quizzical. 'Remind me. What did I do there?’

‘You burned it down.’

He mugged a confused expression, tapping his finger against his lower lip. ‘After?’

‘Saving me,’ Charlie sighed, exasperated. ‘Happy?’

He lifted the bottle to check the level. ‘Don’t I look it?’

‘Those guys at the bar are looking at you the same way the ones in New Vegas looked at me,’ Charlie said. She picked up the glass - it felt slippery under her fingers - and put it down without drinking it. ‘They aren’t planning on letting you walk out of here.’

‘I know,’ Monroe said. ‘What did you think I was waiting on? The whore to be free?’

He pointed with his chin. Charlie made the mistake of looking. The thin woman was giving a grizzled old man the most desulatory hand job ever, cheap bangles clattering on her wrist as she pumped his dick.

‘Lovely,’ Charlie said, looking away with a grimace. ‘And why? Do you know them? Did they insult Miles?’

He shrugged. ‘It’ll be fun.’

‘They could hurt you.’

He snorted. Charlie kicked him under the table. He was too stubborn to yelp, but his jaw clenched. She leaned over towards him. ‘You’re good, Monroe, but so’s Miles. He got his hand smashed up and nearly died. Thugs have boots too.’

‘He got distracted trying to be a good person,’ Monroe said. He tilted his head down, temple bumping against hers. ‘I don’t want to help them, just hurt them. What else is there to do is this shit-forsaken, pathetic, run down hole?’

‘So you pick a fight with the locals?’

He grinned - mad, bad and slightly glazed. ‘We pick a fight,’ he told her. ‘You’re my Matheson, Charlie. That means you have to have my back.’

He pushed off the table and swung around, ramming his elbow up into the face of one of the thugs who’d thought this was a good moment for an ambush. The man’s nose popped, spreading a little further over his face, and staggered back, hand grabbing at his face.

‘Fugger!’ he yelled.

Monroe laughed and flexed his fingers, popping his knuckles. ‘You have no idea.’ He hooked his fingers in a beckoning gesture at the assembled muscle. ‘Come on. Or you gonna piss yourselves and run away?’

They rushed him. A wall of muscle, leather and old scars, swinging fists and sawed down crowbars. He ducked and wove, hammering a punch into a blond man’s kidneys and stamping viciously on a badly bent leg. Even over the fight Charlie could hear the distinct pop-grate of something dislocating. A fist caught him in the jaw. Monroe spat blood, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and drove an elbow into the man’s throat.

He didn’t fight like Miles. It wasn’t all grace and evasion, it was brute force and nastiness, sweat and broken knuckles.

‘Asshole,’ Charlie muttered, getting up. She should just leave him to it, if he loved it so much. Except he trusted her to have his back, and, even if sometimes she hated him, she couldn’t let him down. She grabbed the chair and swung it in a short, vicious arc, breaking it across the back of a shaved man with spikes implanted under his scalp. He grunted and turned, hefting a hammer in one big, scarred hand. Charlie whacked him across the face with the chair leg she still had hold off, smacking his jaw out of true.

His eyes rolled back in his head, flashing blood-shot whites, and went down like a pole-axed cow. Glass jaw. Charlie waded into the fight, jaw clenched and enjoying the thud of knuckles against skin and muscle more than she would ever admit to anyone. This guys deserved it. They'd obviously not been planning on leaving Monroe alive, and they didn't know he probably deserved it. So she didn't have to feel guilty, or bully shame out of the corners by thinking about families and loved ones.

It was simple.

She saw the blur out of the corner of the eye, then the big, callused fist caught her in the side of the face. Adrenaline kept her up and moving - the memory of Miles' unforgiving boot in her hip as he growled about not winning anything from the floor - but the world blurred black and red. Her head was rattling like it was a bell. While she was staggered, a fist grabbed her by the jacket and lifted her up. The seams of her sleeves dug into her armpits as it rode up. The man holding her up was bearded and battered, with tiny, mad pinprick pupils.

'You should know your place, bitch,' he snarled, breath sour as rotting cabbage.

Charlie got both legs up and rabbit kicked him in the stomach, heels hitting just under his ribcage. It should have put him down, but he just roared and swung her around to slam her into the wall. It knocked the air out of her and she flailed, fingers scraping at chipped plaster and shreds of wallpaper.

He hammered her against the wall again. Vomit lurched into her throat, hot with bile.

Someone whistled, the shrill, fingers in the mouth, wolf whistle kids spent hours of time and buckets of spit trying to get right. The man looked around as Monroe put down the last thug standing, kicking him in the temple with a heavy boot. The skull dented in like bone shouldn't.

Monroe was panting, hair spiked with sweat. He wiped his hand over his mouth, flicking blood off his fingers.

'Put the girl down,' he said. 'Or I hurt you.'

Pinprick snorted and threw Charlie aside. She hit a table, glasses shattering under her hip and elbow, and bounced onto the floor. It didn't feel like anything broke. It didn't feel like she'd want to move for a while. She did anyhow, shoving herself painfully onto her feet.

'Nothing hurts me,' Pinprick boasted. He punched the wall for emphasis, grinding his knuckles until they left bloodstains on the plaster. He stormed towards Monroe, hands out like he planned to strangle him. 'I'm going to rip your head off, then make your girl watch while I fuck it.'

Monroe flashed a toothy grin. 'You're not my type.' He grabbed the bottle of tequila and smashed it neatly against the edge of the table. Pinprick lunged and Monroe stepped smartly to the side and punched the broken bottle into the side of the big man's face. It ripped through his cheek, peeling it back to flash bloody, gappy teeth, and opened his throat in a wet, spitting mouth. 'Feel that?'

Pinprick pawed at his throat with his hand, trying to pin the blood-slippery bits of flesh together. He lurched around in an awkward turn and staggered towards Monroe. He slipped in his own blood and crashed to the floor, wheezing himself noisily to death.

Monroe wiped his face on his sleeve and glanced at Charlie, a grin resplitting his lip. 'So, how many times is it I've saved your ass again?'

Charlie grimaced, one hand holding her side. She was starting to re-think them not being broken. 'I don't know,' she said. She drew her knife from her hip, flipped it in her hands and threw it over Monroe's shoulder. He turned to watch the bartender, knife wedged in his eye, pitch forward over the bar. The ancient shotgun slid out of his nerveless fingers. 'Nearly as many times as I saved you?'

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

To be fair, Charlie wasn't sure who was doing the most leaning. Monroe had purple bruises blooming on his jaw and was drunk; she was seeing double and it hurt to breathe. The guards set up in the lobby of the hotel they'd claimed for the duration, stared at her. One of them went to open his mouth, but the other - one of the ones wearing a worn brand on his arm - waved him off.

'Good night, General?' he asked.

'I've made the world safer for itinerant drunks,' Monroe said, pushing himself up off Charlie's shoulder. Despite the fact Charlie knew he had downed most of two bottles of tequila, he didn't sound drunk. He never did. 'Now Captain Matheson and I are trying to decide who has pulled whose ass out of the fire most often. She's losing.'

'No I'm not,' Charlie said. She rubbed at the edge of her eye gingerly. It felt tender and puffy to the touch, blood settling under the tender skin. Hopefully it wouldn't swell shut. She nodded the guard. 'Can you get some fresh water and bread for the General?' she asked. Poking at her eye again, she added. 'And a slice of steak for my eye?'

He nodded and stepped back, barking orders. Charlie hooked her hand in Monroe's belt and tucked herself back under his arm. He was humming something under his breath, the fingers of his free hand tangling through her hair. They made their way up the stairs to the suite set aside for Monroe.

There was a lift, running on rattling pulleys and manpower. Nobody trusted it. Of course, Charlie didn't trust Monroe and she was still here.

She got him through the door and sitting on the huge, old leather sofa. 'Do you need a surgeon?' she asked, cupping his bruised jaw in one hand.

It wasn't really a surprise when he tugged her down on top of him. Warm lips pressed damp kisses against her jaw, biting bruises into her skin, and his hands slid up under her shirt.

'This is still a bad idea,' Charlie said.

Monroe tilted his head back to look at her. 'Do you want to stop?'

She ran her thumb over his lower lip, not bothering to be gentle where it split. 'I didn't say that.'

He bit her, sharp teeth grazing the pad of her thumb, and then dragged them both to their feet. Busy hands tugged her shirt over her head and whipped her belt off, slinging her weapons over his shoulder. A quick kiss licked the sweat off her collarbone.

'All the way to Willoughby,' he murmured against her jaw, while she tugged at his fly with impatient fingers. 'Know what we never did?'

She made an interrogative 'mm?' as she wriggled her hand into his trousers. His cock was already hard, slick and eager under her fingers. He made a rough sound as she tightened her fingers, hips grinding into her palm.

'A bed,' he rasped, grabbing her wrist. 'We never fucked in a bed.'

Charlie paused and then laughed, a quick, startled snort that made him raise his eyebrows. She shrugged. 'I was going to say it's overrated, but...I don't think I've ever done it in a bed.'

He grinned, spun her around and slapped her on the backside - dodging the elbow she jabbed back at his ribs. 'Might as well make the most of Garner's hospitality then.'

It turned out fucking in a bed wasn't that much different to in a cart or on a bedroll. The more you wanted it, the more awkward it was. Easier on the knees though, and knowing you didn't have to get back on the road right away was...new.

Charlie knelt on the bed, hands braced against the headboard. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth, but she couldn't muffle the desperate whimpers that kept mewling out of her. Monroe had one hand on the back of her neck, the scrape of rough fingers pulling all sorts of things tight from her knees to her throat, and the other between her legs. Each hard, eager thrust shoved her forwards, jarring her shoulder against the wall. His fingers worked to a different rhythm, tracing lazy patterns on the wet flesh until he felt like giving the hard nub of flesh there a rough tweak.

She'd already come once and the need to reach that peak again was almost painful. It knotted in her stomach and felt hot and heavy in her breasts. She dropped her head, fingers digging into the padded headboard, and pushed back into Monroe's thrusts. The slap of flesh, the feeling of his cock so deep inside her that it hit that sweet spot between pain and want, left her squirming for...more.

Left her stupid enough to whine in protest when he pulled out, her body clenching in an ache around the sudden emptiness. He flipped her over, straddling her hips and cock thick and wet in his hand.

'You'd kill me,' he reminded her, voice creaking with tension.

Charlie squirmed around, up onto her knees, and grinned crookedly. ‘True.’ She tugged his hands away from his cock, making his breath hitch as she plastered herself to his chest. The bruises from the fight bloomed under his skins, smears and circles of blue and purple. She kissed his jaw, licked her way along the heavy rise of his collarbone and then down. Twitches of electricity jerked from her stiff nipples to between her legs as her breasts slid over his skin.

She took Monroe into her mouth, tasting come and herself on the thick shaft. His cock twitched hard, bumping her tongue, and he groaned ‘fuck’ like it was a prayer. He dug his fingers into her hair, pulling it back from her face.

He liked to watch. To see her under him, to see her around him. Charlie pressed her tongue against the underside of his cock and then pulled back, sucking at the head. His breathing was fast and ragged. The muscles in his thighs visibly trembling under the skin. Charlie swallowed him again, mouth working around the heavy length, and he came with a shudder and the clench of fingers buried in her hair.

Charlie swallowed, tongue swiping over her lips, and sat back. Her hands trailed up Monroe’s thighs, tracing the heavy slopes of muscle and old scars. ‘Miles thinks I don’t know Georgia had slaves,’ she said.

Pushing her down into the bed, Monroe shifted so he was leaning on his elbows over her. ‘Your pillow-talk is unique, Charlotte.’

The way he rolled her name over his tongue made Charlie squirm again, pressing her thighs together and taking a breath of air thick with sex and him. She bit her tongue until she tasted blood to focus her brain.

‘It was nice, Georgia,’ she said, voice a little rougher than usual. ‘It was clean. They had buses and coffee shops and...ow!’

Monroe licked her shoulder where he’d bitten it. ‘The Monroe Republic wasn’t that bad.’

‘It was brutal and covered in shit,’ Charlie told him. ‘I saw people starve to death in winter...’

‘Yet Aaron made it.’

Charlie clenched her teeth. Sometimes it was hard to talk to him without it hurting. Sometimes it was hard to talk to him without hurting him.

‘Shut up,’ she told him, shoving his head down. ‘Find something better to do with your mouth.’

He chuckled, breath warm and beard tickling her skin, and kissed his way down to her collarbones. Charlie talked faster. Once his mouth found her breasts, she wouldn’t have two thoughts left to string together.

‘I thought Georgia was better, but it was just...prettier. At least in the Republic you didn’t pretend.’

Monroe lifted his head, resting his weight on one arm. ‘And Texas...’

‘My grandfather tortured people for the Patriots in return for pills,’ she said. With Monroe, she didn’t bother to try and hide the contempt in her voice. She didn’t want him dead, but that didn’t make his choices suddenly admirable. ‘Carver sold our town for medical experiments and...California’s corrupt too, isn’t it?’

It wasn’t often Monroe was kind, but she thought he was trying to be when he kissed the freckles in the valley between her breasts. ‘It’s not covered in shit, and Garner calls them indentured serfs.’

Miles had told her once, it all started with just one justification. Just one ‘this time it’s ok’. Maybe this was her’s - or maybe it had been the first time she told herself she could trust Monroe. Either way, it was too late now.

‘I don’t want to be a monster,’ she said.

‘You don’t need to be,’ Monroe said. ‘You’ve got me.’

He slid down between her legs, nudging her thighs apart to make room for his shoulders. Charlie tried to hold onto the quiver of horror she’d felt at that, but the slick slide of Monroe’s tongue against nerve-rich flesh was too distracting. She buried her hands in his hair, twisting her fingers in the curls behind his ears.

The moonlight from the window laid bars over his back, disguising the tangle of scars. She was past pretending he could be anyone else though, and she’d stopped pretending she could with the cow.

She arched her hips up into his mouth, the thrust of his tongue making her gasp.


	11. Epilogue

Epilogue

Santa Barbara, March 2031

 

The detour was a dangerous indulgence, but Monroe thought it was worth the risk. Charlie had never the sea, and Monroe wasn’t going to repeat the mistakes that alienated Miles, or Connor. If he was going to become General of California - or President of the Allied States - he’d have a Matheson at his back. And he’d make sure Charlie never knew anything that would upset her.

He’d ordered their men to set up a wide perimeter, creating the illusion of privacy, and brought some of the best piss-poor, local beer for Charlie. It wasn’t chilled, but they were at war. There was even a beach towel for her to lie on, if she ever got out of the sea.

Not that he didn’t appreciate the view. Charlie was giggling and trying to avoid the waves, all sun-lightened hair and long tanned limbs jumping about in the water. He sprawled out on the sand, arms braced behind him, and whistled the refrain to Sex on the Beach under his breath.

He could almost pretend it was before the Blackout, and he was just admiring a pretty girl on the beach. His pretty girl.

‘All the sex in the ocean, all the sex on the beach,’ he half-sung aloud. The fact that Sam Garner was out there in the perimeter, eating his lovelorn little heart out, just made it better.

Eventually, watching Charlie turned into watching for assassins. The image of Charlie jerking, eyes huge with surprise, and then falling backwards into a bloody tide, overlaid the reality. He got up and walked down to the tideline, waves lapping at his feet.

‘Charlie.’

She glanced over her shoulder, that sunny, unreserved grin that he sometimes earned lighting up her face.

‘Why did you stay in Philly when you could have come here?’ she asked, splashing water at him. He stepped back, then wondered why.

‘Come and drink your beer,’ he said. ‘We should get back to camp.’

Charlie sighed, but waded out of the sea. Her cotton bra and panties were soaked through, showing rose-pink nipples and a golden triangle of hair. Monroe’s cock joined forces with his paranoia in agitating for a sudden return to their tent.

He grabbed her waist and pulled her in for a kiss. ‘You happy?’

The smile wobbled a little. He knew she didn’t want to be happy, couldn’t justify that to herself. One day he’d get her to admit it though.

‘This was fun,’ she hedged instead.

She strode up the beach and flopped with boneless, angular grace onto the towel, grabbing a bottle. At least one good thing about the Blackout, Bass supposed, Charlie didn’t know the difference between good beer and bad.

‘Did you send the messenger back East?’ she asked, tilting her head back to the sun. Her eyes closed, squint wrinkles at the corners, and she wrinkled her nose. ‘With the letters?’

He paused, the mouth of the bottle resting against his lower lip.

_The messenger was a Ranger. He had family back in Texas, and every reason to deliver the letters and not toss them in a hedgerow and head North. A greying van dyke beard clung to his jaw, waxed into a point, and he wore a string of Patriot patches tied to his arm._

_‘Sir?’ he said, stopping in front of the desk and saluting. ‘I was just getting ready to leave. Is there a problem.’_

_Bass looked up. ‘Not yet.’ He held out his hand. ‘Can I see the letters?’_

_The Ranger reached into his jacket and pulled out the bundle of letters, handing them over the desk. Bass untied the ribbon, licked his thumb and flicked through them until he found the one addressed in Charlie’s painstakingly neat letters. He hesitated for a second, then pulled it and set it aside. The rest were re-tied and handed back to the scout._

_‘That letter was included by mistake,’ he said, holding the man’s eyes with his own. ‘The others need to be delivered as soon as possible. Understand?’_

_The man hesitated, eyes flicking to the letter, but he nodded. ‘Of course, Sir.’_

_He saluted again and left, tucking the letters into his jacket. Left behind Bass picked up Charlie’s letter to Miles and tapped it against his fingers. The urge to change his mind and go after the Ranger, give him the letter back, hit. If Miles got it, he’d come here. It might be like before, him and Miles. Only this time Bass would have the pretty girl at his side._

_Except - he crumpled the letter up in his hand - it wouldn’t be. He’d be the one on the outs, with both of them. Alone, again._

_He burned the letter._

‘Yes,’ he told Charlie. ‘He left yesterday.’

She nodded, hair catching on damp, sandy shoulders. ‘We should move on tomorrow. Consolidate the ground we’ve taken off Garner.’

  
  
  



End file.
